cabinet magazine

I realize now that I have never mentioned to you before now my love of Cabinet.

Cabinet is possibly my favourite magazine. It contends with Readymade, which I also love.

Each themed issue of Cabinet is filled with unusual information on a range of ecclectic topics. You can open it to any page and learn something new - and something you probably would've never thought of learning about. After reading it, I want to tell people about these amazing new things I've read about. The latest issue covers topics including early scientific debate about jellyfish (which you can read online here), a guy who tried to put LED lights on pigeons when they fly at night (turns out the don't fly at night), electrical transformers that were built to look like houses, and an article on the colour yellow by Nato Thompson - one of the most well-written, whimsical and enjoyable pieces of commentary I've read in a long time.

Here's an article on the Cabinet site with a craft bent (pardon the pun). Oregon-based Richard Reames shapes living trees into furniture and sculpture - something called "arborsculpture" - the art of shaping tree trunks to create art and functional items through bending, grafting, pruning, and multiple planting. Not to be confused with bonsai (miniturizing trees) or topiary (the shaping of foliage), arborsculpture is the method by which Reames managed to grow living structures that range from the more mundane (if you can even call it that) - like chairs, benches - to the spectacular - like a tree whose trunk turns into a peace sign part way up, a 30-foot poplar tree trunk that splits into a spiral then reunites, and an oak tree with a spiral staircase growing in it. He's working on growing a house. Read the full story here and visit Richard Reames' site here.